A Drop In The Ocean
by TheOppositeOfSinister
Summary: Child protegee Kiaria Rhee was a planner. She had her career path planned since she was 10. She had her education planned out upon graduating before 15. She did not, however, plan to get caught up in the apocalypse. She did not plan on staying more than a few hours at the CDC in Atlanta. And she most definitely had not intended to live past 19. Rated T for safety. R&R.


**Hey people:)  
To my followers- I know you'd probably prefer that I keep up my other stories, but I've had this one written since before I went Awol.  
To the new readers- hello! Name's Jess:)  
It's gonna be a slow process, all my stories are... I woke up from a coma round September- October... Got out of rehab right before Christmas, but still not ship-shape:( This of course adds up with boarding school- so basically updates are a very random occurrence...  
Also, the non-English bits are from Google Translate, so don't bite my head off...  
Hope y'all enjoy this one...  
Pairings still undecided...  
R&R**

* * *

 **The Beginning**

 _"Hey_ _jamaeui (=sister)_ _. I know you probably already left for Atlanta- but go back. This is_ _not the right time to be here. I love you, and I'm sorry. Just stay safe, and get the hell out of the city. Take mom with you. I wish I could have seen you again. Saranghaeyo, dongsaeng (=I love you, little sister)_ _. Goodbye."_

Kiaria slammed her hand down on the keyboard as she listened to the voice of we most likely dead brother. He had sent her the stupid message days after she'd arrived in Atlanta. Hours after the outbreak. After she had already left their home city (she knew the expression was 'home town'- but Detroit wasn't exactly a town).

"You alright?"

She was here, alone with one other person, in these vast halls, both of them on crack after the loss of so many at once hit. Now they could only wait.

"Bloody hell no." She muttered, taking a long sip of wine. "But I'm forgetting that for now. I'm gonna get drunk, you're welcome to join me." Kiaria handed her companion the bottle, and stood up, leaning up so she could whisper in his ear. "It's just us, Ed. I don't think anyone's out there anymore." She walked out slowly enough to witness him drain the rest of the bottle.

* * *

"We're 29 days into the apocalypse." Dr. Jenner told the camera, Kiaria having abandoned her seat at the neighboring computer a long while ago. She'd spent all afternoon (or maybe it was evening? He couldn't tell anymore) staring at a photo she'd managed to load from her phone. By now he recognized the picture of her family. He could name each of the five sisters and two brothers accordingly, and recite what each of the 7 Rhee siblings had done in their lives, and what their names meant. Which divorced parent they'd lived with, and for how long. She hadn't been around for a couple of hours now, but the picture was still on the screen, even there her eyes burning holes through the photographer from behind her rectangular glasses.

"Kiaria suggested digging deeper into the remainders of TS-19, but we haven't put it into action yet. Hopefully by tomorrow we'll have started. We are using our time today to plan everything out. Supplies, fuel, the time we have left. Weaponry, and the research plan we will do."

"Ed, are you ready yet?" The combination of the British accent and the Korean one was now a regular sound to him, as it almost always seemed to echo throughout the empty halls, and Jenner couldn't help but wince. She was going to walk in, drunk. He knew teenagers had a tendency to drink- but he'd forgotten how annoying drunk teens were. He winced at the thought of his younger sister- her fate, no doubt the same as 98 percent of the worlds population.

He looked towards the entrance, and was stunned to find that Kiaria was perfectly sober. Well that was unusual. Apparently she'd been showering for the past god knew how long- because her clothes were clinging to her wet form.

"Almost." He called back at her, his attention back at the screen. "Sleep is hard. Maybe it's because I don't know whether its night or day anymore- or maybe just because of night terrors. Whatever the cause, it's been affecting the efficiency of my research and I plan to put an end to it."

Kiaria showed up on the screen behind him, shrugging a towel off her shoulders. "Are you seriously still doing that? God, it's like a 12 year old girl and her diary."

"End transmission." Jenner snapped, and the screen went black.

"If you're done being a boji (=pussy)..." She pulled a lab coat on over her freshly dampened clothing, and set her glasses upon the bridge of her nose. "The cure won't find itself, now will it?"

* * *

Kiaria stared up at the huge, blank screen in the middle of the room. She heard her fellow scientist in the background, the computer going as he made another stupid transmission, pretending there was still someone out there. It was 46 days since the outbreak (at least according to Jenner) and they had been trying to reach Fort Benning- or any other military base, really- for over a month now, but there was no answer.

She was so sick of this place. Hell, she was sick of this world- of living. It was an incredibly selfish thought but she wished she had died years before so she wouldn't have had to suffer through the madness the world was now in. She heard Jenner mentioning his wife, Tessa, and knew he too was loosing his will to remain amongst the few living people left on the planet.

She had no hope. None left. She would have walked right through the front doors if not for one thing; the small chance Fort Benning was still up and running. The chance her eldest sister, who was stationed there, was still alive. And she had to know. She couldn't let herself die if there was even the smallest chance that the last of her family would be left alone on earth should she die. If it wasn't suicide- she would have been half way to the military base by now.

Her eyes flitted towards the calendar hanging besides the screen, days marked by her own two hands in red ink. August 2nd. That was the date. Her birthday would be in a month. September 4th. But she wouldn't live that long. The pain, the suffering, the grief... It would all be over. She was so glad- so grateful. She didn't want to be ripped to pieces. Like her family probably had been. Still, it was slightly depressing she'd never live past 19.

* * *

"Jenner here. It's day 194 since wildfire was declared and 63 days since the disease abruptly went global. There's no clinical progress to report. Item… I finally got the scrubbers in the east sector shut down to save power. Wish I could have done it a month ago, but it took me that long to figure it out. Too bad I never studied engineering. Could have saved a lot of amps. Item… I'm still not sleeping well. Can't seem to keep regular hours. Living underground doesn't help, not knowing if it's day or night. I'm just feeling very off-kilter..." The computer screen went black. Kiaria had pulled the plug- literally. This time- she was drunk. Again.

"Sober up, Rhee." He snapped with annoyance. "We're heading into the lab. I want to try something on the TS-19 samples, and your help is necessary."

"Whatever." Kiaria mumbled. "Lets just do it tomorrow."

Jenner looked over her shoulder at the wall, where a small calendar had been hanging for as long as he'd worked at the facility, but Kiaria always seemed to keep it within her line of sight, and he remembered. "It's today, isn't it?" He asked sympathetically.

"3 years." She snapped angrily. "Three damn bloody years..." Jenner was shocked when Kiaria fell to her knees and cried. "He left me!" She sobbed. "I ran off to college and when I came home he- he was gone! He left everyone behind, and he said he wouldn't leave me like them! He lied to me!" Jenner didn't make a move to comfort her, knowing the pain of losing the ones you loved could not be fixed by a pat on the back and condolences. Kiaria sat on her knees, her head bent so low her tear stained glasses fell off, as her sobs shook her body.

"We'll do it tomorrow." Jenner said. "Tomorrow."

* * *

"It's been 65 days since the outbreak. Food stock is still high, so is electricity, thanks to the tweaks we conducted the other day. The fuel is running low, but neither Kia nor I plan to go out and restock. When it runs out our suffering will finally be over. We will be with those we love, in a better place." Edwin sighed. "The alcohol, however, is running out quite quickly. If she keeps it up this way we'll be out by the end of the week. The TS-19 brain samples are gone as well. Their loss cannot be accounted for. There's nothing left. Nothing but to wait for the clock to run out."

"Ed, I'm hitting the showers!" Kiaria hollered from across the room, heading down the hall, and he sighed.

She had showed up on a tour, a few days before the outbreak. An exceptionally young medical student from Oxford (19 years, just out of her 4th year of medical training!)- having graduated high school before she hit 15. From the first moment her brilliance had been noticed by everyone at the CDC, and the professor she'd come with gloated at the miraculousness of his star pupil. When everyone started running, she didn't. Instantly Kiaria had begun shooting out ideas like a machine gun, suggesting a million different solutions, pulling out her thesis and running through her newly found theories. It had been quite incredible- the vast amount of solutions she had created, and even more so the amount she had shot down herself.

A sudden banging sound from the security cameras drew his attention, and he saw people. Living people standing at the front entrance, amongst all the dead. Edwin winced. He couldn't let them in. But he couldn't leave little children outside, and have their blood on his hands. But then again- if they came in they would die anyway.

"There's nobody here." A black man amongst the group muttered. "Then why are these shutters down?" The man at the front was clearly their leader, his need for sanctuary seemingly the most passionate.

"Walkers!" Walkers? An interesting name for the dead, Jenner mused. Interesting, and quite fitting. He would bet anything the term was phrased by one of the children they traveled with. Children- almost none remaining alive, all killed at their ripest. All dead but these two.

"Baby, come on." The woman who spoke would be his partner. She held tight to the male child- who was obviously her son.

The man who had warned the others was holding a crossbow, having just shot down the walker. He was very clearly pissed, his southern accent somewhat refreshing, Jenner having spent the last 2 months hearing no voice but that of the British-Korean girl he'd spent that time with. "You led us into a graveyard!"

The man who answered would be the leaders right hand man, judging by his protectiveness towards the man's woman and son, and his pounce to protect the leader from the angry redneck. "He made a call." The right-hand-man snapped.

"It was the wrong damn call!" The redneck yelled back.

"Just shut up. You hear? Shut up. Shut up! Rick, this is a dead end."

A black woman amongst them spoke nervously. "Where are we gonna go?" The leader, Rick, was stared in a sort of trance at the door, his eyes flitting between the door he was being held from breaking down (or at least trying to break down) and the security camera focusing itself on the group. "Do you hear me?" The right-hand-man said, ignoring the black woman's comment. "No blame."

The other woman, Rick's wife, seemed slightly miffed her friend was being ignored, despite the severity of the situation. "She's right. We can't be here, this close to the city after dark."

The right-hand-man seemed slightly to keen to agree with his friend's partner, almost as if he's hoped the CDC would be a "dead end". Jenner was so miffed by his attitude he was almost tempted to open the front doors just to prove him wrong. So miffed, in fact- he nearly missed the man's next words. "Fort Benning, Rick… Still an option." Fort-Benning. Kiaria's eldest sister was stationed there. Nora, unless he was mistaken. He could let them in... Let them help Kiaria find her family... _No. What is the point of giving her false hope?_ False hope. That was all it was. He couldn't let her suffer another blow like that. Just a little longer and they would both be put out of their never ending misery.

Another woman spoke, this one filled with grief, on such an intense level Jenner knew she would wish to go out with them. To pass on and be with those she had loved and lost. "On what? No food, no fuel. That's 100 miles."

"125. I checked the map." The lone scientist almost collapsed at that. Not his words. The Asian man's face was so familiar. His name at the front of the scientists mind. His face still smiling out of the neighboring computer screen. He shot his hands out towards the computer, and zoomed the camera a bit so it was focused on the Asian man. _Korean,_ he internally corrected himself as he stared at the face of a living, breathing Glenn Rhee.

"Come on, let's go. Let's get out of here. Let's go. Please. All right, everybody back to the cars. Let's go. Move." The right hand man was, to some degree, smarter than his superior, who was staring fixedly at the camera Jenner had just adjusted. Jenner swore.

Rick had not moved as his friend walked back up to him. "The camera… it moved."  
His friend brushed aside his words, urging everyone back to the road- where Jenner assumed they had vehicles.

"It moved." Rick insisted. "It moved."

"Rick, it is dead, man." The right-hand-man said desperately. The dead were beginning to move around. "It's an automated device. It's gears, okay? They're just winding down. Now come on." Rick didn't budge.

Jenner found himself pleading. "No, just go away." But he dreaded the thought. How could he just turn his back on Kiaria's family? She was all he had in this world. And she needed her family with her in her final moments. Not some 30 years old scientist she'd been stuck with, hell she barely knew him. But this man, Glenn, he was a survivor. Jenner could see it. He was still young and innocent. He still hadn't faced many horrors. But he was not going to opt out as they, he and Kiaria, wished to.  
Would she, though?  
Her brother was alive. And she may find for what to live.

This raised doubt in him. If Kiaria chose to live- would he die? Would he let her suffer more death.  
But then he reminded himself- the only reason he meant a thing to her was because they were stuck together. Once the same could be said for him. But now? He knew his once disregard for her was now emotion stirring deep below the surface. He wondered. Maybe this was what it would have felt like if his wife hadn't died, their baby with her. Maybe this was what it would have felt like to be a father. Jenner had been so caught up in his thoughts, he had missed part of the dialogue, and was jolted back to reality as Rick pounded on the shutters. Dumbass.

His partner was perfectly horrified. "Rick, there's nobody here!" She snapped angrily, pulling on his arm, her son tucked under the black woman's arms.

Rick began talking to him, through the camera. Well, there was no way he could not help them now. "I know you're in there. I know you can hear me."

His spouse and friend made to drag him away, but he fought passionately against them, trying his best to stay long enough to convince Jenner- though he obviously didn't know it was him- to open the doors.

"Everybody get back to the cars now!"

"Please, we're desperate. Please help us. We have women, children, no food, hardly any gas left." With a deep sigh Jenner grabbed a riffle from beneath the desk, and yanked his lab coat off- though he frankly didn't know why he did so.

"Rick. There's nobody here."

"We have nowhere else to go."

Jenner was out of the room as they kept talking, the small voices still echoing throughout Zone 5.

By the time he reached the front door, Rick was screaming on the other side.  
"You're killing us! You're killing us! YOU'RE KILLING US!"

He made a bit of a fuss about the racket the idiot outside was making, but hit the keypad at the front, and suddenly the shutters flew up, and for the first time in two months- he saw the night sky.

* * *

Glenn hovered near the back as Rick spoke with the scientist called Jenner. God, he looked healthy- meat on his bones, sharp, all his limbs in tact, no bruises. Nothing. No marks of the insane world outside these walls.

Maybe, in a few weeks, or months- maybe they could look like this too. Maybe the pain would go away, maybe the world would be normal again. Maybe he could find out what happened to his family. If any one of his five sisters had survived, if his younger brother had kept their mother safe as promised. Glenn hadn't given his input on the discussion at camp- Fort Benning or the CDC. His oldest sister was a general in the military, and had shortly before the outbreak been stationed in the said base. However- the CDC held answers. They could find out what happened. And he was desperate for answers.

Glenn wondered if this was what the walkers felt like, as he walked down the hall after Jenner, vaguely thinking he said something about blood tests. Aimlessly walking, simply moving- no real thought as to where he was going. No one who could comfort him- show him a way. Sure, he kept up a nice face- and it was always more than just that- but the man leading them... He had showed Glenn just how lost they really were.

They sat in a room, one by one needles pricking different arms, Daryl putting up a fuss about stupid doctors, Sophia whimpering as she approached the needle. A small smirk tugged at his lips as he remembered being squeamish about his first blood test, and his youngest sister- who'd been only 6 at the time- watched excitedly as the blood flowed smoothly through the tube. She had definitely enjoyed it more than him.

The minutes flew by, and Glenn found himself laughing with the others as Carl expressed his disgust at the alcohol he'd just tasted. All of his siblings had always been fond of alcoholic beverages. It was their little rebellion against their overly strict, traditional father. At least- that was what Glenn had thought of it. Both the oldest and youngest of his sisters would disagree. Nora and Kiaria had admired their father beyond anyone he knew. Rebelling against him was inconsiderable as far as they were concerned. The fact that Nora had gone off to the army was proof enough for that.

"Not you, lil' man." Daryl said as Glenn lowered the bottle of wine back to the table. Everyone was laughing. "I wanna see just how red yer face can get." Another round of laughter as Glenn brought the bottle to his lips, mimicking the action he'd seen his sisters do dozens of times. He kept on drinking as Shane began to question the doctor.

"So when you gonna start tellin' us what the hell happened here, doc? All the other doctors that were supposed to be figuring out what the hell happened... Where the hell are they? " Though Glenn was convinced that Shane had absolutely no tact sometimes- he had to agree.

"Shane, we're celebrating. "Rick said only half scolding. It was clear that on the one hand he desperately wanted answers, but on the other hand he wanted a moment of peace, without all the shit that was going on.

"It's just me... Well, me and my assistant."

Rick frowned. "Assistant?"

"Assistant? Really Ed?" Glenn felt his heart drop a thousand feet. That voice- the accent. The little lilt she had with her 'T's. Those glasses he'd teased her about since his youngest sister turned 10.

"Kiaria?" He croaked out. His drunken haze made the world slower than it should be. Like the Walkers.

"Glenn?"


End file.
